I am writing my doctoral thesis about writing practices and the use of knowledge in forgery crimes in Finland during the period 1828–1850. I study court records and forged documents from the Turku Court of Appeal in order to examine how the peasantry used knowledge and skills in the writing of forgeries. What might the forgery crimes tell us about the peasantry´s knowledges in Swedish writing practices during a time when Swedish was still the language of administration and education in Finland? Who wrote forgeries and how were they as writers? How was knowledge used and materialized in the forgery crimes? How were the forgeries created in interaction between people? The thesis contributes with new knowledge about the literacy of non-educated or very scarcely educated Finns in early modern Finland. The used source material represents a rare example of preserved texts that originates from the peasantry during the time period in question.

The research is part of the project ”Förfalskarna – Allmogens litterarisering och kunskap om det svenska språket i brottslig kontext i Finland under 1800-talets första hälft” (The forgers – The peasantries’ literalization and knowledge about the Swedish language in a criminal context in Finland during the first half of the19th century). The project focuses on the peasantries’contacts with writing culture and problematizes the Finnish peasantries’ need for written documents and their skills in writing texts in Swedish before the Finnish language got equal status with Swedish. The project is a cooperation between historians from the University of Turku and Åbo Akademi University.

I am conducting my doctoral thesis at Åbo Akademi University.